Judgment Day, Hear the Wondrous Word of the Lord, black-and-white lithograph
1955
black-and-white lithograph
9 7/8” x 13 ¾” plate
There is a black-and-white as well as a color version of this print, which expresses the song’s rich history and significance since the time of the Civil War when it was created. In a recorded account dating to the winter of 1863/64, Union General Henry G. Thomas describes how the Ninth Regiment U.S. Colored Troops stationed at Camp Stanton in Benedict, Maryland, gathered together during the cold nights to warm themselves over campfires. Samuel C. Armstrong, a white Union officer who established a school for blac soldiers in Benedict and later founded the Hampton Institute, noted how African American troops relied on songs to get them through difficult times. He saw that they often sang together of their former antebellum lives in an extraordinary dissonant chanting. One evening Armstrong witnessed more than a thousand voices joined together in a powerful and melodic rendition of “Judgment day,” which he called the Negro battle hymn.